


Yellow Checkered Cars

by unswiv



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Blood and Gore, Car Accidents, Hospitals, Major Character Injury, Yikes, oh lordt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-04
Updated: 2017-03-21
Packaged: 2018-09-14 18:48:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9198362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unswiv/pseuds/unswiv
Summary: Run of the mill taxi crash, blood and horror fic. I can't do summaries.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> um hi yes, this is, like, actually the most horrific thing i've ever posted. i mean, i've only posted one other fic on this account so far but IN ALL MY YEARS OF POSTING ON VARIOUS ACCOUNTS THIS IS BY FAR THE MOST TRAUMATIC. ha, traumatic, get it? because it's a trauma fic?  
> anyway, if you're into blood and guts and comminuted fractures, stick around because honey, you've got a big storm coming.  
> also yes the title is a fall out boy lyric please let me rest.  
> aaaaand the chapters will get longer as it progresses this is kind of just an introduction.

He didn't see it.   
The driver didn't see it.   
I saw it, though.   
I glanced up from my phone and saw headlights, but didn't think anything of it. 'They’ll stop,' I thought, looking back down at what ever I was doing. 'It’s a red light. They’ll stop.'  
I’m not sure if they didn't or if they couldn't, and I’m not sure what exactly is going on, where exactly I am, or how bad it is exactly. Exactly sure am I, however, of the crumpled left side of the taxi, the smoke filling my chest, and the identity of the upper body collapsed across my legs cold, unresponsive, and splattered in red. The impact is a blur, my phone is gone, and amidst all the panic of bystanders banging on the windows to ask if anyone's okay, the car is absolutely silent. I’m stunned speechless, the driver is out cold, and my best friend, the only one of us three sat on the left side, is intertwined with metal and glass and fluid that's made his hair curl and mine stand on end. I can't feel him breathing, but then again, I can't really feel anything except panic.   
Before I can tell myself for the thousand and first time not to move for his sake, every window is flooded with alternating blue and red light. The concerned riot outside withdraws, and we are swarmed then by uniformed men with torches and lock picks keen on clearing this mess mainly so traffic can flow freely again.   
My door is opened, and a wave of freezing cold air and blinding light hits me hard enough to make me squint and move my hand to try and block it. "Anything blatantly wrong?" this police officer asks, honestly a bit disinterested it seems. I stutter for a moment in return, and he somehow just notices the corpse sprawled across my lap. "Yes," he answers his own question. "Yes, medic!"  
It’s clearly some new wave massacre to warrant that reaction, but even with the light, I don't dare look down. I stare straight out the door and bite at my lips and hold my breath until the emergency medical brigade of superheroes comes to my desperate rescue. "Oh... kay," a woman no older than myself and no more than half a foot shorter than me starts in. A burly man around my height but double my width comes to front. "Which one first?" she asks him.   
"Depends," he addresses me then. "Anything numb? Anything critical?"  
I try to respond, but it's all just a jumble of sorry sounds.   
"Shock," he says simply, turning back to his partner. "Get in, steady the direct impact while I pull this one out."  
My friend is pulled off me and held like a macabre rag doll while I am taken into the arms of seemingly Christ himself with a bit more muscle tone and set on a gurney. I try keeping my eyes towards my friend as I’m felt for swelling, checked for cuts, and blanketed in a convection cloth. "I’m not seeing anything deadly, but lay still, we'll take you in regardless."  
Another set of paramedics I don't bother studying takes me off to the truck while a whole other fleet of them start for the taxi. I watch him for as long as I can for any information as to his life status, but everything fades quickly. My far, far overwhelmed brain disregards Dan and descends into a level of consciousness that comes so quick and hits so hard that nothing matters.   
In short, I’m out.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is really just an excuse for me to flex my 'i used to take med classes in high school' muscles and like yeah i spent a whole lot of time editing it and i have a huge list of notes when this fic only has like 25 hits but listen to me it can be our little harrowing secret  
> deal?   
> deal  
> it only gets gayer from here folks prepare ye selves

And then there's A&E. I come back to in a trauma bay with cold compresses on my left side from just below the ribs to just below the hipbones. Soreness lingers just about everywhere, but it doesn't seem like more than bruises given the lack of panic in the room and between my nerves, maybe a dislocated shoulder from hitting the door less than gently, but all around a world better than I thought it would be in the midst of the crash. Upon moving the gauzy, overly bleached blanket I’m under, I see bright aubergine and green swirled bruises with flecks of red from pinpoint bleeding scattered about them. That’s to be expected. There are little cotton squares and plasters along my jawline I feel when I run my tongue against the inside of my mouth to guarantee I’ve still got teeth, which, thank goodness, I do. These small dressings continue up my cheekbones, but that's also to be expected from the glass from shattered windows strewn about the entire crime scene like little snowflakes that stuck to my clothes and the polyester seats and, mostly, in my head up until now. Speaking of, my head is a bit foggy and my hands each have an IV port that lead to, on the right, morphine, as well thank goodness, and on the left, a bag on a pole that’s completely clear and I assume to be basic fluids. All in all, I think to myself as my eyes drift from greyish blue walls to canary yellow curtains separating me from London’s finest assortment of hot messes, it could have been so much worse.   
"Oh, hello," a nurse around my mum's age with greying hair and exhausted features starts in in a slightly northern accent that nearly makes me cross myself I’m so relieved to hear one right now. I would study deeper the shadow under her eyes and the frailness of her hands that, no doubt, saved my life, but I am currently caught in such a flurry of confusion and soreness that I’m not all that keen to focus on much of anything. "I’m sure you've got a million questions, so go on whenever you're ready."  
I pause a beat, still caught in aforementioned flurry. "I’m not entirely sure where to start."  
"Then I’ll ask you some," she takes a clipboard from a cart beside my 'bed' which is more of a cot. "Who are you?"  
I pause again. "I’m, er, Phil."  
"Correct," she chimes brightly. "Where are you?"  
"A&E," I answer, warranting a nod.   
"Why, exactly, are you in A&E, Phil?"  
"Car crash. Taxi crash."  
"Three for three," she disregards the clipboard. "What’s the last thing you remember?"  
"They gave me a shock blanket and I passed out."  
"Pretty much," she looks back at the clipboard, and as I find myself wishing she'd make her mind up about it as a whole, I find myself just a tad back to normal, at least thought process-wise. "Before you ask-- it's mostly cuts and bruises, some deeper and more painful than others. No fractures, sprains, or dislocations, though there is a mild concussion that we’ll keep you overnight for. Prognosis: really sore for the next couple weeks. We’ll give you a note to get out of work."  
I process this quickly, noting how unbelievably lucky I am once again. Some soreness and time away from my computer screen is a world better than what could have happened.   
"Car wrecks are like lotteries, and being on right side of the car, literally, at the right time can do a whole lot to up the odds of getting out alive.”  
Panic blossoms in my chest and I go completely white. "Is there any chance you've got information on the other people in the car?" I ask this with shaking, overly fidgety hands. "My, er, I was with my flatmate and he looked pretty bad."  
She’s quiet, and I immediately assume the worst. "He’s..." she gestures as she tries to find her words. "Well, he's alive. I can tell you that much."  
I exhale the breath I’ve been holding for what feels like a lifetime. "Oh, thank god."  
She looks back at the clipboard, then at me. "They’ll let you in with him once you're discharged and he's stable. I’ll put in a word for you to make sure, but until then, any more questions?"  
"That’s all I really wanted to know."  
-  
In the morning, once I’m relatively awake and given my prescriptions, I’m given my clothes back, thankfully washed, and led up a floor to intensive care. The very phrase strikes fear into my sternum. As the lift opens, a metaphorical lead blanket of dread I’ve seen in a more literal form in a few x ray rooms already covers my entire body. My floor, while still as much of a hospital as it could be, was more welcoming. Nurses chatted in the hallways, families sighed of relief behind curtains as they were told their afflictions were minor or not as bad as they'd thought, and the walls had a bit of color. There were potted plants, albeit fake, on the counters administration sat behind or professionals researched at, and while there are counters, there are no fake plants, just charts and sorry ‘bad news’ phones. This floor is empty, bright white, and completely silent. Rather than curtains, rooms separate patients and windows separate said rooms from hallways so the professionals can see in if someone goes into arrest. In each one are husks of people hooked up to tubes and monitors and machines that breathe or simulate a pulse for them. I try not to look, but I do at all the medical cubicles on only the right hand side, for some reason, because I’m absolutely desperate to find the patient that belongs to me. The amount of blood and guts and breathing tubes I see before I get there is absolutely harrowing, but it's nothing compared to seeing him.   
"Here’s your boy," a glass door is pushed open and I’m led in. There is my boy, I guess. He’s sound asleep, maybe a bit more than that, with his own breathing tube taped to his lower lip. He’s bruised deeply on the left side of his face, down his neck, and down to his collarbones. Before I can finish studying him, however, this immensely strong looking woman with bold features and the tightest hair tie I’ve ever seen starts in with her defined forearms and a more heavy duty clipboard. "Most everything is on the left," she tells me with her thick, nearly cockney accent, causing me to immediately go cold. "So, we've got a fairly simple group of fractures here along the upper radius and lower humerus— just clean breaks, should heal fine without any surgeries or anything within a few weeks, then moving down, he's got a few ribs cracked which, funny enough, happened because of the force from that elbow. And then-" she stops herself and looks at me with narrow, dark eyes as I stare at my friend in shock horror. "Are you keeping up with this, Phil?"  
No. "yes," I return.   
"Great," she points her pen towards his hipbones. "The impact happened here," his blankets are pulled back and I’m gestured to come to that side. I try arguing I’m squeamish, but it goes unnoticed. "I won't show you anything rude, but since you're the one that lives with him, you need to pay very close attention, alright?" she uncovers his left leg fully, and while it's all wrapped in white and stabilized, it comes extremely close to making me faint.   
"Oh god," I exhale.   
"Luckily, no spinal damage, but we've got a sprain on the pelvis, complex, comminuted fracture on the femur, basically crushed it into all these pieces the surgeons had to wrangle back together with pins. Right mess, that one, hardest bone to break in the body."  
I just blink.   
“Then at the knee, we keep going with the comminuted or crush fractures, but below that, this tibia, the top, 'shin' bone, if you will, was fractured at an angle and I know you're squeamish, so I’ll make this quick, when the impact hit and he collapsed onto you, this lower leg twisted and then snapped, so that was actually open. You’re lucky you didn't see that." she turns and looks at the X rays on the wall, prompting me to as well. I can't really make sense of them as I don't know how to read x rays, but they're the ugliest x rays I’ve ever seen. I don't know how Dan's alive after all this, let alone how I’m supposed to ensure he gets better. Our house has stairs, a lot of stairs, and that fact alone scares me just shy of the floor. "Fibula, back of the shin, is pretty clean all things considered, but his foot got caught in between the door and the seat when it crumpled in, so there's more crush fractures there at the tarsals, the little ankle bones, metatarsals, which make up the long part of the foot, and then a few toes to add insult to injury."  
I continue to merely blink, absolutely stunned by it all. He’s down an entire side of his body, and the dominant one at that. I’ve no idea how he'll react or cope or recover, when I’m honest with myself. He’s just going to stay like this forever, in this room with these tubes and these braces, because in my mind, these are the things that people don't come back from. These are the stories you don't hear about. You’ve got the paralysis and the head trauma and the organ transplants, but the many, many fractures aren't really brought up. I’ve never heard any story like his, so I’ve nothing to base it off of. I don't know what's going to happen to him or how he's going to get better. Another point is that if I’m as sore as I am, he's probably asleep for good reason. I don't want to touch him, ever. I don't want to live with him or talk to him or even look at him I’m so deathly afraid of it all, but he's my best friend, and I owe him at least some company for not saying anything when I saw the other headlights.   
"I know it doesn't feel like it," this woman who could definitely win in a fight against me starts back in as she stares down at my friend. "But it's a really good thing he hit you and not anything else. If he'd hit the door there would have been head trauma and maybe bleeding and all that gross, heavy stuff, but as it is, because he hit you, he'll be alright."  
I nod a bit. "That kind of makes the sore legs worth it."  
She gestures to a chair beside the bed, a disgustingly generic waiting room chair against a disgusting, generically white wall. I quickly take it not just for my sore legs, but also for the shock still threatening to take over my knees. "He should be awake in a few hours if you'd like to stay.  
I pause, thinking he was asleep for an unknown amount of time as many a medical drama led me to.   
"It’s just medication from surgeries. He’ll be out of it when he comes around, but I’m sure he'd love to see you after such a rough night."


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wanted to say, before getting into this, that i considered for a good twenty minutes making this a house crossover but ultimately decided against it even though, let's be real, that would have been ~incredible~. do people still watch house? am i just old? if you haven't and you like this fic even a little, would highly recommend, lot's of trauma and drama, and if you have, it's never lupus. why do they always think it's lupus?  
> thank you, by the way, to the people who are subscribed and immersed in this.. well, i was gonna say train wreck, but it's technically a car wreck. haha... ha, okay, here's your chapter. enjoy it, bask in it, and for the love of house, consider getting some tissues, because this is a tough one.  
> i, love, commas, and, i, will, see, you, next, time,,,

I come around very slowly to tangerine light pouring into the room through dainty, semi-transparent hypoallergenic curtains. The concentration of early morning color settles on my chest and illuminates the sparkling of antiseptic seeping through and around gauze dressings and creating some sort of galaxy among the greys, blues, purples, and greens that blossom around my sternum thanks in large part to the first person I see upon blinking my rice paper textured contact lenses back over the front of my eyes.   
He’s as awake as I am, not very, amber eyes glassy as they follow the rays of orange from the window to the reflective sterile tile to the cot I’ve slept on for some six hours. For a moment, he just looks at me. I do no more or less, and there's a shocking clarity in this moment. We both realize that we are indisputably alive, perhaps not so in regards to ourselves, but in so each other. I am astounded to see him conscious and aware, he is astounded to see me just the same, and there's a mutual feeling of relief and comfort in this reflective realization that brings us not to stand and touch or say anything, but to nod a bit and drift back to sleep.   
-

A moan draws me back into reality, one of such desperation that comes from so deep in a chest that isn't mine that it is absolutely mortifying. Primal instincts seem to kick in, the protective, best friend instinct that grabs the heaviness from behind my eyes and throws it out the window completely. I jolt out of my bleary state as though something has just literally jumped out to grab me and flail to sit up. "What-"  
He turns to me so quickly and looks at me in such a way that tears the rest of the question I began from my plane of existence entirely. It’s a mixed expression, somewhere between awestruck and baffled, with a strong shot of relief thrown in.   
I fail mostly to collect myself and fail completely to tame my hair before starting back in to talk to him as I’ve been so desperate to since however long it's been since the accident. "Hey,"  
His eyes get big and well up with tears faster than I can comprehend.   
"Okay," I stammer, getting to my feet somehow and getting over to him without too much concussed dizziness. "No tears," I take a box of tissues from the bedside table. "None of those. Here,"  
He takes my forearm tightly and pulls me in, prompting the most awkward and yet most sincere hug that has ever come from him, of which there have been quite a few awkward best friend hugs, though most of them don't happen completely sober. "Fuck," he exhales, gripping at the back of my shirt tightly. "I’m so glad you're alright."  
If I didn't think it so precarious, I’d pull more at him for the exact same reason, but as it stands, I am absolutely terrified of him physically, and even more so at the idea of making things any more awkward. We don't hug all the time, but we do frequently enough to where it's not strange, yet something pulls at me and prompts me not to pull at him.   
"Wait," he pulls away but keeps a hand on my arm. "Let me look at you."  
"Dan-"  
"Let me look at the damage, I mean."  
"It's not all that visible, erm..." I watch him as he looks all over me to try and find something wrong. His eyes settle eventually on the bruises around mine. Then it's just as though we're looking at each other longingly. "It’s just-" I pause as I look at him, a wave of confusion crashing over me. "Dan,"  
"yeah?"  
"I could've sworn everything was on your left side."  
He looks down quickly and shakes his head. "I was on the driver's side."  
"I know, but I feel like they told me-"  
I’m cut off with another moan like the one that woke me as he reaches up with his left hand and tries to move his hair back into place. "Sorry,"  
I step closer and move the piece of hair he's trying to get away from his eyebrows. "Better?"  
Dan nods shyly. "When I reach up, it all kind of... gets angry, you know?"  
"Yeah," I sit down in the empty space beside him, of which there's more than a standard hospital bed. "What happened while I was gone?"  
He shakes his head again and looks over at a heart monitor beside him whose electrodes are stuck to his shadowy, slightly stubbly chest. It’s a steady beeping, slower than it was last night, as though he's calmed down a bit. "It’s all a blur, you know?" he looks at me, then. Bruises just like the ones on my own chest have budded along his neck and jawline on the right side. Seeing that gives me chills. If he got hit there, he could have got hit there a lot harder. "I remember what happened, like, with the car and I remember getting here, but that's really it."  
I study him a moment, wondering how, firstly, I managed to get such an obvious thing as the side of the body afflicted wrong and secondly, how much I managed to underestimate the damage on the both of us. He can't touch his hair, I can't remember direction, and neither of us can stand up, though I do get pretty close before a head rush. "This is so bad." I exhale.   
"You’re telling me," he's looking where I was when I glance up at him, studying all the thick plastic and tubes and wires strewn about his limbs. "The house has so many stairs."  
I smile and exhale a slight laugh.  
He looks up at me. "What?"  
"I thought the exact same thing."  
"Maybe because it's true?"   
My smile falls abruptly as we make eye contact.   
"I’m scared, Phil."  
"Of getting better?"  
"Of not getting better."  
"It’s only been a day," I try as he thinks on it more and brings himself back to the verge of tears. "At least, I think it's only been a day. Maybe two, I don't know, but no more than two, and they've been pretty hectic days, yeah?"  
He doesn't answer apart from looking across the room.   
"A lot of surgeries and manhandling. Tomorrow, I’m sure it'll be-"  
"I’m so scared." he interrupts in a near whisper, still not looking at me.   
"Dan-"  
"it's not just that, either, it's like-" he pulls at the sheets over his dominant half feverishly, his breath shaking as he does. "I don't know if they're exaggerating or if it's really this bad."  
I lean in towards him in an attempt, which doesn’t work, to pull him out of his thoughts and back into reality. "What did they tell you?"   
"A lot."  
"Well, what did they tell you that's got you so scared?"  
"A lot."  
I exhale simply, a bit stumped as to how to get through to him.   
He looks over at me quickly, his eyes reading of complete panic. "Six months," he says. "At least."  
"Until you're back to normal?"  
"Until I can start trying physical therapy."  
"I thought-"  
"Six months," he sobs, as nervous vibrations wrack his unsteady hands. "We’re going to lose everything."  
"No," I push his hair back as it falls again. He takes a hold of my forearm tightly. "We’re not losing anything, alright? We’re just-"  
"We can't even keep the house!"  
"Shh," I place the hand he doesn't have hostage against the inside of his arm, as that's all I really feel comfortable touching. "We’ll figure it out." I try. "We’ll figure it out, just..." my breath leaves me completely as I look at him. Last I saw him was in the taxi with his upper half collapsed against me. Amidst the shock, there was a moment when I broke down. It comes flooding back to me. I held his hair tightly and sobbed, begging him with all I had to come back. “No!” I remember bawling. “You can’t do this! You can’t leave this soon!” He wouldn't move or make any sounds, and for a moment, a long, long moment, I even feared he wasn't breathing. When I finally got some light and looked at my hands, they were soaked in bright red. “This isn’t how it’s meant to happen.” I told him. “This isn’t how it’s supposed to end.”   
In all my haze and fog of head trauma the past few hours, I forgot how much I needed him during that panic attack, but now, watching as he has a panic attack of his own, it's clear how much he needs me. I look at where I’m grazing his arm, then back up at his teary honey eyes lined in all their sickly red and gentle bruising that mainly spreads across the bridge of his nose, almost like a smattering of butterfly freckles. His stubble's just come in and that shadow mixed with the swirls of bruising makes this traumatized best friend of mine the most heartbreaking work of art I have ever seen. His hand slips from mine, prompting my eyes to drift back to his from where they were towards his neck. He blinks his tears down into his lower lashes and allows me to brush them away with my thumbs as they start down his cheeks. A small, sad sound comes from the back of his throat, but judging its involuntary nature, I don't bring it up. "It could have been so much worse." I tell him softly.   
He takes a breath that stutters in through his mouth and rests his hand against the back of mine as it rests on his cheek prepared to catch more saltwater. "What scared you the most?"  
I take in a breath just the same. "Right after the impact, I looked down and you were lying across my legs with the door crushed in," I watch closely as his eyes make these small, scared movements. "I didn't know if you had your legs or if you were alive or..." I trail off, getting hit with the same mental image I had in that moment of the medics pulling him from the carnage as just an upper body. The blood and the abandoned legs make me dizzy, freezing cold, and a bit sick. In this dizziness, I look down quickly and grip at the railing on the side of the bed.   
"Hey," he pulls my hand from where I’ve gripped the only thing tethering me to this planet and laces his fingers between mine. I don't look at him. I can't look at him. "Come here," he guides me to his shoulder and move his hand to my hair, ruffling it softly. I pull my knees up close and hold onto his arm with both my hands, hiding in his shoulder, thanking something I’m not sure of with all I have that I can lie here and burrow in the smooth saltiness of his skin. "It’s okay," he reassures. "It could have been so much worse."


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my lord, hello. It's been a while, but I have excuses. Mostly, my computer crashed so I lost the free student version of word (if anyone knows how to use google docs efficiently, hmu I'm desperate). Also, though, I had to get the courage to leave a job and it's all kinds of sad and stressful, which is really why I'm posting bc you all give such positive feedback. Obviously, I can't write this fic as my only job, but who knows? Maybe one day I won't have to keep quitting jobs and can write my gay, gory stories for a living. That probably won't happen and this is kind of a rant, so sorry, I'll stop!  
> This chapter is pretty much just sad thinking simulator 2001 and I promise the next one will be all kinds of domestic because I know that's all anyone is really here for. If you're interested in anything specific, feel free to let me know, because it would help loads and would be a lot of fun, but anyway, thank you for sticking with this fic as much of a mess as it is and throw some attention my way if you wanna make my day.

I manage, in all my concussed, emotionally exhausted glory, to drift back to a consciousness I didn't know I'd left. It's still daylight, albeit blurry and barely, and this I know as the first thing I see is a shadow of stubble illuminated not in orange or yellow, but pink, the kind of electric, neon pink that shouldn’t exist naturally. As cautiously as I've ever done anything, I sit up from the shoulder I've grown a bit too comfortable on and squint towards the window.  
The sky outside it completely takes my breath away. Normally, we don't get sunsets like this what with all the clouds, but this evening is a magenta, tangerine, and light blue watercolor dream, with scarce grey clouds sprinkled in. "Dan," I whisper.  
His right hand jumps, but when I look down, he's still deeply, artificially asleep.  
The sunset then goes on the back burner and I am overwhelmed with guilt for having taken part of the bed of someone who genuinely needs it as much as he does. Now that I'm here, I look, and all of it together is the saddest thing I have ever seen. His purple fingertips with blood under the nails and the parts of his arm that the gauze has slid off of with all their swelling I'm sure is keeping them from being covered. His collarbones which look so much deeper from where the grayish green has bloomed in the dips and the breaths that come in and go out with slight creaks from ribs that snapped upon the recoil of his elbow that peek out from under the sheets. I look down to where their bleached cotton excellency ends just above his knee and while I can't see anything from the inches thick layers of plaster and cotton, I imagine those toes twitching as I see them do on the left. It's all so heavy and so unbearably heart-wrenching that part of me wants to leave the bed and watch him get glued back together like the permanently sun-glazed, symmetrical featured glass doll he is, but a bigger part of me sees his free fingers fidget for some ounce of any type of comfort in between IV tubes and brings me to stay and stare at him. His shoulder has indents from my hair and his jawline, humble and stubbly as ever, is still raised slightly to let me lie in the negative space. His candy floss hair fluffs up onto the pillow in a gentle quiff he's pushed back and created with teary hands that took his straightened legacy with them. When I remember that, I remember too that I forgot how scared he was. I fell asleep and left him to lie there and stare at the ceiling terrified of never getting his mobility back.  
I should have told him.  
I should have subtly gotten him to lean over away from the door. "Look at this," I could have said, or, "which picture should I post?" I could have said anything.  
I should have said anything.  
But I didn't.  
I just let him get hit, and while, sure, I saved half of him, he can't live with half a body. He shouldn't have to, anyway. I turn back to the window, counting my blessings. my best friend is terrified and traumatized, sure, but the sky is pretty.  
Though, it has dulled a bit.  
-

He stays asleep long after it's gotten dark, and the door creaks open. The same strong featured, immensely dedicated woman starts in, this time in rosy pink scrubs and a less dyer expression. She looks as though she pities me, her defined brows fixed more in understanding than in urgency. I've been back on my cot for some while now, having met with a particularly kind brother of mine who brought such things from the apartment as clothes, my glasses, thank god, and an invitation that I come stay with him. The reason I haven't gone home is that I can't stay asleep for more than a few hours and don't trust myself to test my own cognition with alarms and counting to ten in front of a mirror. Someone has to be there to vouch that I'm not having any type of episode, then remind me when I inevitably don't remember upon waking up for the final time afraid that I did. I don't really see a point in putting my brother up to that when I have the option to stay with not only medical professionals who do this for a living and know how to react should I adversely, but also with my best friend, who, though he's been asleep, has been absolutely miserable every waking moment apart from those spent calming me down. He mentioned in passing to me that he called his parents, but they're not in the country currently. He assured them that they needn't come back as it wasn't too bad, but I think he just doesn't want to deal with his family. I don't really blame him as I don't know his family very well, and that says a lot about them as I know a good bit about him and have for a good while.  
I digress.  
"He's still asleep?" The woman I now realize is his doctor as I'm not in the smartest mindset currently asks me. I nod a bit sadly, not worried about him so much as deathly bored after being denied my phone, or any screen for that matter. "That's good, means his body's working to fix everything."  
"Yeah," I return simply, somewhere between sad, sore, and overly medicated.  
"Once he's up, we'll get him out of ICU, as well. You can still stay with him, and, great news, tomorrow we can get him sitting up again!"  
This shouldn't be great news as it's something so simple, but I smile a bit anyway. It's something.  
"Maybe next week, we can get him out of bed."  
"Right," I pause a moment and look over at her from where I'm permanently staring at him. "When is he, erm, when can I take him home?"  
She shrugs and looks back at him from where we made eye contact. "Little over a week, maybe?"  
I go cold.  
"Ten days tops."  
"That's... a lot less time than I'd thought."  
She nods and draws closer to his monitors, jotting down what they have to say in their foreign robot language. "He's doing really well. We figured he wouldn't do much worse at home so long as he stays in bed."  
I'm quiet for a moment, watching as she looks over him and jots down things I guarantee I wouldn't understand onto this clipboard I swear to god is glued to her hand. "W-what about, erm..." I trail off as she looks over at me, losing my train of thought.  
"What about what?" she asks.  
I blink as I try to get my thought back.  
She stiffens a bit, more than likely thinking I'm about to collapse.  
"Stairs," I finally stammer. "We have a lot of stairs."  
"Oh," she sizes us both up quickly. "erm, I'm sure he'll figure it out. I wouldn't worry now."  
I nod simply, worrying about it now.  
"What I would do now, if I were you, is get some sleep." she gestures to my various prescriptions sat on the floor beside me. "Take those and get some sleep."  
"All I seem to do is sleep."  
She shrugs a bit. "Better than worrying or staring at the walls."


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi!!! wow, hi, it's been a minute, but i'm not here to make excuses, i'm here to give you something to read that makes you squint across the room afterwards and think, 'am i a sadist? man, i'm a sadist. at what point in my life did i become a sadist?' don't ask me, dude, i'm just here for your incognito tabs.   
> anyway, slap a big ol TRIGGER WARNING on this chapter for panic attacks. nasty little buggers, right? i'm warning you now because i really don't want anyone to have one because of my silly little sadist outlet fic (though you kind of have to be a -good- writer to induce feelings on your readers).   
> anyway, anxiety warning, we've all got a little edge of sadism here, and if you have a best friend, tell them how much you love them because that's the moral of this story.  
> longer chapters coming once i stop being shy about fluff and i will get back to you as soon as i stop blushing writing the next chapter (barf).

So, I sleep.   
I sleep, and sleep, and sleep, and sleep, and sleep until we're allowed to go home. As excited as I am to finally get away from the smell of bleach, he doesn't say much of anything. I can understand that he's tired and sore, but it's been two weeks and he doesn't have any reaction at leaving. He doesn't do anything until he's put in the lefthand backseat of a taxi, and it's pretty safe to assume how he reacts.   
He's quiet about it at first, staring at his phone silently, but I realize something is wrong when I glance over and he's just staring at the home screen.   
"Hey," I start.   
"Hey," he returns in a near whisper.   
"What are you looking at?"  
He locks his phone and puts it beside him on the seat. "What's it matter? I can't show you."  
"You could," I argue. "It's been over a week."  
"Sure, I /could/," he adjusts a bit awkwardly, looking out the windscreen at all the traffic and going completely still. "B...but..."  
I look where he does, then back at him. "Nervous?"  
He looks at me as though I'm completely clueless.  
"You'll be fine," I try, reaching over to touch him but getting shot down as he pulls away. "Dan-"  
"I'm not fine," he interrupts. "Don't tell me I'll be fine when I'm already not fine."  
"You know what I mean, it's-"  
"I don't know what you mean, but that's probably because I'm too deep in a panic attack to read between the lines right now, so if you could just leave me alone until you have to drag me into the house like I'm a fucking child, that would be great."  
I look down at my hands, a bit scorned. "Maybe i'll just leave you out here, then."  
He pushes his hair back quickly and exhales a breath he never took in. "Don't talk to me."  
"Leave you in the taxi, leave the meter running until you have to sell your hair for fur coats to get back home."  
We stop harder than is generally normal, and I watch his face as he goes from panic attack to /panic attack/. "Oh my god,"   
"It's okay,"  
He takes in a near asthmatic wheeze and puts his hand to his chest. "I can't do it," he pulls at his shirt and looks over at me, still wheezing though I've absolutely no idea why. "We need to stop. We need to find a different way to get home. I can't-" he stops to hyperventilate and fidget wildly, touching and tinkering with the strangest things for some reason though it doesn't seem to be helping him.   
"Can you sit still for, like, ten seconds while we figure this out?"  
"Why are you mad at me?"  
"I'm not mad at you."  
"You're mad at me! you sound like you're mad at me!"  
"I'm not mad at you!" I start to fidget with my own hair then, quickly growing absolutely terrified of what's going on with him. It's just a panic attack, and I know it's just a panic attack, but he's not in the best shape to be having this big of a panic attack. With all his body's gone through, he could give himself a heart attack or an aneurism or something. I don't know, I'm not a doctor, and I have absolutely no idea how to stop him from having it because we're so close to home that pulling over is more trouble than it's worth, but he doesn't know that because everything seems so slow during a panic attack. "I'm not mad at you," I reiterate as he continues to look at me. "You're just a little all over the place, but that's fine. I understand."  
"I didn't mean it when I told you to leave me alone; I was just nervous."  
"I know, that's why I tried to distract you." I watch as he draws his phone close to his face as some sort of comfort object, and then it clicks how I can calm him down. "Let me see your phone?" I take it from him without a second thought.   
"You're not supposed to be looking at it." he says this though I hush him and assure that that only lasts for the first week. "No, put it down, I don't want you to die, you have to take care of me."  
"It's been a week, I'm fine."  
"No!" he lunges for me, but in blocking his hand, I take his hand. The cliche is overbearing and nauseating, but he does stop wheezing when I touch him, and that's reason enough to let it happen.   
"This is sweet," I tease, moving my hand to a place where I can feel his pulse and ensure that it goes down eventually. "Even if you're soaking wet."  
"I'm nervous," he pants. "I get all sweaty when I'm nervous."  
I look over at him for a moment and simply nod. "You're nervous?" I ask. "I never knew."  
"You're being mean to me again."  
"Here," I hold his phone out to him. He pulls away from my hand and takes it, confused at first as to what he's looking at. "See, there's the car, and there's the route we're taking home. You can sit there and watch it so you know how close we are."  
He looks at it a moment before exhaling exasperatedly and leaning back against the seat, staring out the window at all the houses and the cars and the people walking by. "We're never going anywhere." he says. "Ever again. I know I make the joke that we already don't, but I mean it this time," he looks over at me. "We're never leaving the house again."  
Rationally, we both know that won't happen, but if I know anything about panic attacks from the one I had last time I was in a taxI with him, it's that rationality has no place in a panic attack. Looking at his purple bruises above the eyebrows and around the jawline and looking at the red, swollen inner corners and underneath area of his eyes from crying instead of sleeping, rationality is the last thing on my mind. I’d stay inside with him for the rest of my life if it ensured his well being.   
I think I'd stay inside with him for the rest of my life regardless because I never knew how much I needed him until I almost lost him. A best friend is hard to come by, especially a best friend as wonderful as my best friend.   
"Never again." I tell him.   
His breath leaves him anxiously. "Ever."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok hang on i almost forgot, this chapter is saved as 'descending beatboxing' in my google drive and i just wanted you all to know


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